Feb 1
2008
Rule 240
Apparently, Rule 240 says "that an airline facing a delayed or canceled flight had to transfer you to another carrier if 1) the second carrier could get you to your destination more quickly than the original line and 2) it had available seats."
Anyone ever tried it?
Yep. The story is one of family lore that involved a number of successive lies by the woman at the United counter.
The highlight came when we asked if she could transfer us to Delta because they had a flight which was leaving. Her response? '(long pause) .... because you booked online and on a partner carrier... we can't.' (I had booked via aircanada.com).
We head over to the Delta counter to see how much the flight would cost. The guy at the counter calmly asks "You have a United ticket? Go back and tell her to transfer you to Delta."
Walk back to the United counter and told her to transfer, rather than asking, and within 1 min she had switched us over.
This was after she said the flight was delayed for 20 min and in the next sentence said it hadn't left Chicago yet. When asked how long it takes to fly from Chicago she responded "2 hours."
"So it is delayed at the very least 2 hours?", "No, it's delayed 20 min." "But it takes 2 hours to fly from Chicago and it hasn't left yet?" "Yes." "So it's delayed 2 hours?" "Next in line please."